Lily Alter is a resident of suburban Chicago. She's an activist spreading awareness about many of the issues facing the local homeless community. And she's a social entrepreneur who spends her days raising money to provide clean, safe menstrual supplies to women in need. Would it surprise you to learn she's only 15 years old? Alter says it shouldn't.

Alter's philanthropic work began with a ninth grade English assignment. Her teacher had asked the class to mock up grant proposals so they could apply their writing skills in a practical way. Alter chose to focus her paper on the needs of homeless women in Chicago—specifically their lack of access to necessities like menstrual products. "I chose to write mine about that because of an article I'd read in the New York Times," Alter tells SELF. "But as I learned more and more about it, I got kind f passionate. So I wrote my paper, and then I decided to turn it into something real."

That "something real" is a nonprofit organization called FlowKits, which Alter started in March 2016. Alter created a page for the effort on GoFundMe, and has raised more than $10,000 in nine months. Her initial goal was $1,500, but she's continued to increase the crowdfunding goal as she's found success.

Alter puts the money toward creating "FlowKits," or kits full of feminine hygiene products. She currently offers five different kinds of kits, and the "classic" includes 14 tampons, 14 pads, 14 pantyliners, 14 sanitary wipes, and a menstrual health information booklet. She also creates incontinence kits, which come with bladder pads and sanitary wipes. Through her grant proposal pilot program, Alter planned to provide 30 kits. But since her project has grown, she's created and distributed 400 kits to homeless women in the Chicago area.

"Many homeless women lack access to menstrual supplies, and sometimes have to choose between food or tampons and pads," Alter writes on the FlowKits GoFundMe page. "When women don't have access to tampons and pads, their menstrual hygiene can deteriorate and can cause serious health problems." And she's right, research has shown a connection between poor menstrual hygiene and urinary or reproductive tract infections, as well as other illnesses. "Not only is it terrible, but it’s also embarrassing," Kailah Willcuts, a 27 year old who was homeless for more than eight years, told the New York Times. "Not to mention that now you have this stain on your pants. I only have the clothes that I’m wearing, so I’m standing there half naked, bloodied, you know, washing my clothes out."

So each week, Alter pays a visit to Housing Forward, an organization helping the homeless transition to stable housing. There, she hands out about eight kits a week. "Eventually, I want to be a nonprofit with a real place—a window, or something," she says.

But all Alter's worried about right now is doing what she can to help her community—and to inspire others to do the same. "The way I see it, I don't think it should be so unexpected that kids do this," she says. "A lot of kids are philanthropists, go to protests, are really concerned about these issues, and care about these things. We as a society tend to think that kids care about their phones more than people, and I really don't think that's true."